Five Times
by Konsui's Little Brother
Summary: Five times Chekov put himself and his well-being behind others. One time, he didn't.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Thank you to who-ever voted on my poll! The story ended up being a two-shot, because it seemed to flow better this way to me, but I think it's still good. I hope that everyone else here thinks so! This was my first time writing a Star Trek 2009 story so I really hope it turns out okay.

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Five Times Chekov Put Himself Behind Others...

1. Felicie

"It iz okay, Lapochka. Jour Big Brudder vill take care of jou." Chekov sent a small, broken smile at his younger sister, Felicie, as the frail girl curled up in the single blanket he had on his cot.

Below, they could hear their Father storming around in the kitchen. Glasses clanked together, the smell of smoke drifted up the stairs and into the door-less room; loud, rovacious laughter drifted up the stairs from the group of drunken men gathered in the well-furnished rooms underneath of Chekov's own near bare one.

Felicie, a young and thin girl of eight, let out a soft whimper and curled up closer to Chekov. In turn, the slightly older boy put an arm around his sisters shoulders and pulled her into his lap. At the movement, slight as it was, the whole cot shook and creaked as if it was about to give way and collapse with the two children on it.

"Do not vorry, Lapochka. I vill not let him hurt jou." And, even though Chekov was only two years Felicie's senior, he meant that with every fiber of his being. He would not let his Father anywhere near the younger girl. Not when he could still move. Could still breathe. Could still take the pain in her place.

And Felicie knew that her brother would protect her. He always did. Always shielded her from Father's swings, wild and filled with a drunken rage, ever present since the death of their Mother almost four years ago. And though the dark marks that were forming on her brothers pale skin, on his arms and his chest and his back and his face, scared her...Those marks being on her own body scared her more.

2. Sulu

He was going to be so late. Advanced Theoretical Physiches III started in exactly...Two minutes. And not only was the class all the way across campus, which would take far longer then two minutes to cross, he didn't have any books with him.

No the sole book that Chekov was carrying, a thick black leather bound one, wasn't for his class. Or for him, even. Because, while it was an Advanced Theoretical Physics book, it was for the second set of classes. Not the third, and most difficult, one that he was in. No, it was for his room mate, Hikaru Sulu.

The older man had ran out of their dorm room that morning, while Chekov was collecting the last of the books he'd need for the day, completely forgetting the very important book that was laying on their table. That was what happened, Chekov thought ruefully, when you over slept by almost forty minutes though. Which was exactly what Sulu had done. But Sulu also had an ATP II test that day which he would need the book for.

So, with only minutes to spare before he had to be heading towards his own class, Chekov had abandoned his own bag of books and taken off down the hall after his friend. The Russian prodigy, and he was a prodigy having been excepted into the Starfleet Academy when he was fifteen, could always re-take his exams in ATP III after he finished the rest of his days classes.

3. Scotty

"Jus' leave." Scotty's words came out as a murmured whipser, pain clearly seeping into each sound that he made, barely loud enough to hear over the noise of the howling wind.

And, though he made no move to respond to the fallen man, Chekov heard them. They made his heart stutter in his chest and his own voice more panic-filled. Brown eyes wide, filled with fear and pain, he tried once more to get the comm to pick up the Enterprise's signal. Anyones signal. Anything! At this point, he'd even settle for one of the enemy ships to get his distress signal just so that he could hear someone elses voice. But no one answered. The only thing that Chekov got, in between his shaky requests for Enterprise to answer, was static.

Behind him, half-propped against one of the shattered pieces of red-stone, Scotty was sprawled out. Dark red was soaking through the standard issue Starfleet uniform; staining the spots that hadn't been torn by jagged pieces of rock and metal. The same crimson color was caked around the mechanics mouth from when he'd coughed up blood only moments before.

The Scotts-man looked as though he wanted to protest again, to tell Chekov to save himself, but the only noise he seemed capable of making now was a strangled gasp as he tried to bring air into his lungs. Desperatly tried to get air in his lungs. But he couldn't.

Chekov shook the comm again, desperatly calling in for someone to pick up, before he hooked the small, blood-splattered device to his belt and struggled to his feet. He hadn't been as hurt as Scotty was, or at least he didn't think that he'd been as hurt, but he hadn't gotten away with out injuries. It would have been impossible to escape the explosion (one he'd only been caught in because he was helping Scotty repair the planet's Bio-Terra System to be nice) unharmed, after all.

Pain shot through the Russian's body as he stood up, his head swam and his vision blurred, but he was determined to get out of the ruins they were both sitting in. He hobbled over towards the prone mechanic, ignoring the gasps to 'leave' and 'save himself', and used a blood-stained hand to try and lift the older man to his feet. "Ve 'ave to get out of here, Sir. Try and -a wet cough broke his sentence here, the same crimson that was on the mechanic staining his own lips- get up."

And somehow he managed, with little actual help from Scotty, to get the other man up and an arm over his shoulders. The Russian's body shook, legs threatening to give out under him with the added weight, and it was all that he could do to start walking forewards.

"Chekovw to Enterprise. Chekovw to Enterprise. Iz anyvone there? Mishter Scotty is wery injuwed. Please pick up." But there wasn't any response. Just that pain-filled silence that meant it would be longer until he could find help for his injured comrade.

A strong, dirt and heat filled wind swept past the Russian. Grains of sand, burning hot, buried itself into his own injuries; open and freely bleeding gashes that covered his legs and his arms, scratches that were scattered about his face, burns on his hand. Even the bruises, forming thick and dark and promising of internal problems, felt the wind push itself into him.

But he kept pushing foreward. Kept putting one foot in front of the other, one breath after the last, because he knew that if he stopped then Enterprise would never find them and Scotty would die. And he wouldn't let the older man die, alone and in pain on an alien planet, if he could do something about it.

So as his breath came in gasps, each one shallower and wetter then the last, he kept walking and kept calling into the Comm. And as his vision started to blurr, he heard the heart-leaping noise of someone answering back...

"_Pavel? Can you hear me? It's Ohura. Listen to me, Pavel. We're going to try and get close enough to land the ship. Our beams aren't working right. Tell Scotty to hold on a bit longer!"_

5. Kirk

Letting out a low groan, Chekov rolled over in his bed and threw an arm up to cover his eyes. The lights had turned themselves on by themselves, as they did everyday at 5am, almost ten minutes ago but the Russian was reluctant to get out of the bed.

He felt positivly awful that morning and, since it was his one day off that month, he didn't plan on getting up anytime soon. He'd just forgotten to turn the light-system off before he went to sleep the night before.

Over the past few weeks,ever since they had stopped by Xandel IIX, a virus had been spreading it's way through the members of the Enterprise. It wasn't anything deadly, otherwise Bones would have confined everyone on the ship to their rooms by now, but it wasn't a pleasent thing to have.

Spells of dizziness and light-headedness, vomiting, coughing, migranes, fever; it came with the whole package. And as far as Bones knew, there wasn't a cure for it. The people that got it just had to lay back and let it run it's course on it's own.

Chekov was pretty sure that he had it.

He'd gone to bed the night before, more like the morning before since he hadn't actually made it into his bed until sometime after two, with a massive head-ache and a sick stomache. He'd woken up with that, a wave of dizzyness when he'd tried to get out of the bed to turn the lights off, and an ache that spread through his whole body.

That had actually what spurned the young man to stay in bed and try to sleep a little longer instead of getting up and hitting the tread-mill like he usually did on his days off. A few extra hours of sleep wouldn't hurt his schedule and he really didn't feel like trying to stand up and face the dizzyness.

Just as he was falling back to sleep though, a loud beeping rang out through his room. Eyes shooting open, Chekov through his arm away from his face and blindly reached out for the button on his bed-side table that let messages come into his room. It took a few tries, in which the beeping just added to his growing head-ache, but he eventually managed to hit it.

_"Pavel? Pavel, this is Kirk. I've got that stupid virus that's been going around the ship and I need someone to cover my shift up on the deck. Would you mind?"_

Letting out another groan, Chekov pushed himself up in bed. It took a few seconds to blink away the dizzyness but once it was gone he hit the button again so that he could respond to his captian. "Of course, Keptain. I will be up wight away."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I am so, so, SO sorry that it took so long to get this out! I just haven't had the muse for it at all. That's probably why this last chapter's so bad...Hopefully though that's just my inner critique being a jerk and you all think it's alright.

Oh, and if I lengthened any of the four parts before this, which ones should I do? I can't tell if they're good how I left them or if I should put in some more...Suggestions would be awesome!

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1. Chekov

"Alright everyone, heads up and ears open. I've got some bad news for you." Kirk walked across the bridge as he spoke, hands folded behind his back, towards the large chair he normally sat in. As he walked, the heads of those on duty turned to follow him, small smiles on their faces at the typical call from their young commander.

Chekov wasn't smiling though when he pulled his eyes away from the computer screen. He'd been trying to crack the same code, one they'd found just drifting about in a supposedly empty section of space, for the last three days. So far, all that he'd managed to accomplish was give himself a headache and muss up his sleeping schedule; not that he had much of one in the first place.

Kirk didn't say anything until he'd settled down into the Captain's Chair, spinning it around once when he first dropped into it. By the time it had spun back towards the majority of the crew, the slight grin on his face had dissapeared, lips twitching down into a frown. "The crews vacation time has been cut down by a hundred and twenty hours. That means some of you are going to have to cancel your plans and stay onboard the Enterprise for Christmas."

Groans seemed to fill the room, hands flying up to run through hair and eyes narrowing to send displeased scowls at their captain. Chekov made a small shrugging motion, not bothering to frown at Kirk, before turning back around in his seat to start tapping at the keyboard again. It wasn't like Kirk had chosen to cut back on their vacation time. An order like that came from way far up in the chain, higher then Chekov could ever even dream of meeting.

Behind him, he could hear Kirk start announcing a list of people who's vacations would be destroyed but the words were steadily being tuned out. His eyes, once more focusing on the number filled screen in front of him, started to loose focuse and sting; vision blurring as the numbers started to swim. It took a couple of hard blinks for his vision to steady again. Only to have someone start nudging him in the side with their elbow. The elbow hit his arm, which in turn caused his hand to jerk and the wrong string of numbers to be entered into the program.

"Derqumo!" The fact that he'd been hit flew completely from his mind as the screen cleared. Chekov hunched foreward in his chair, blue eyes wide, and slammed on a couple of keys. "No, no, no! Come back!" He half-muttered to himself.

The screen remained white.

All of his work was gone.

Completely and totally gone.

The man beside him, some red-suited newbie who's name Chekov couldn't remember right then, let out a vaguely apologetic noise before sliding his chair a good couple of inches away. Breathing deeply through his noise, trying to think calm thought, the Russian turned to face his captain. "Yes, Keptain?"

It wasn't hard to hear the slight cracking of the ensigns' voice when he spoke and Kirk found himself wincing slightly. "I asked if you didn't mind being one of the crew members that gave up their vacation time. Ohura was telling me that there are several other coded messages that need to be worked on and since you're almost done the first one..."

Almost...Done? "Sorwy, Keptain, but I'm not almost done anymoure." Chekov jerked one hand towards the screen behind him. "I just lost all of my wouk."

Kirk blinked. "Oh. Well, then that's an even better reason for you to stay on board! You can try and get back the lost data! You didn't have that much planned back on Earth, anyways, right?" The young captain laughed, waving one hand in the air beside him. "So do you mind?"

Chekov's arm twitched, left hand curling into a fist. Nothing to do? Just because he was younger then they were didn't mean he had nowhere to be! In fact, the logical conclusion would be to think that he did have somewhere to be! Even if it was just a party, most people his age always had somewhere to go on Christmas.

But Kirk was pulling that face, with the large eyes and the stuck out lips, that even Spock had a hard time resisting. For a moment, he almost said 'yes'. Chekov's mouth was open to say it but the words were stuck in his throat, choking him and reminding him of exactly who he'd been planning on visiting when they went over Russia, and he couldn't get them out.

"Da, Keptain, I do mind." The words were soft and quick, because Chekov didn't trust himself to get them out otherwise. "I hawe already promised somewone zhat I would be in Russia zhis week. Sorwy."

And with that, the small blond pushed himself from his chair and swept down the hallway; motions stiff and forced, smile gone from his face. He felt bad saying no, because it meant someone else would have to give up their vacation and miss the opportunity to see a relative, but he couldn't not go this year.

He'd promised Felicie that he'd bring her something from space the first time they passed over his home-country, along with the tulips he always brought. The chunk of space-rock, polished until it was smooth, was already picked out.

Her grave was going to be beautiful by the time his leave was up, Chekov would make sure of it.


End file.
